User reviews

Extreme boredom leads to fascination. Like sands in the hourglass so is this day in the lives of several bohemians living in Austin, TX in 1990. You'll either be bored to tears or fascinated to no end.

If you've ever been to Austin, or spent a sleepy summer in a college town like Lawrence, KS or Madison, WI, then you'll appreciate the parade of pseudo-intellectuals and good-natured conspiracy theorists that provide much of the grist for the script. These offbeat characters and wonderful dialogue make this film memorable.

Remember the traumatized yacht owner in the greasy-spoon diner or the older dude with the toupee from the coffee shop? 'We've been on Mars since the 50's', he says. I loved the loser with the TV strapped to his back and the older guy who found an armed robber in his house, only to take him for a stroll and a friendly chat (about Charles Whitman). I also enjoyed the menstrual-cycle stone garden and the fortune-telling hippie chick with the black eye who was having 'a breakthrough day'. Nearly every conspiracy theory in modern pop-culture is paid lip service during the film. That's a lot of sophistry and navel gazing to be sure!

Not every character is a gem. The Madonna pap-smear girl gets more annoying with every viewing. But I recommend this film for its originality and understated comedic themes.

Much has been made of the tangent approach to the story telling. I think the technique runs out of steam about three-quarters of the way into it. In other words, it's about 20 minutes too long. Still, it's a fun movie!

The title of Richard Linklater's deadpan debut feature describes a new generation of young, educated, aimless social misfits, part of a young neo-bohemian subculture of drifters, dreamers, and losers with no money, no ambitions, and no worries outside the occasional paranoid conspiracy theory. Their marginal lifestyle revolves around the concept of (in slacker vernacular) 'hanging out': eating, sleeping, watching TV, drinking coffee, and listening to the latest, local garage bands. But what they do best is simply talk, and the viewer is invited to eavesdrop on an extended series of hilarious soliloquies, anecdotes, and observations about politics, history, art, Smurfs, and UFOs, from a cast of nearly 100 genuine slackers pulled off the streets of Austin, Texas, apparently a hub of slackerdom. The film (not a documentary) is structured entirely around random encounters, methodically following one character after another, with no plot to interrupt all the verbal detours and digressions. It looks (and sounds) entirely improvised, but believe it or not was all carefully scripted and choreographed, and the result is one of the more unique and original American features of its time.

This movie has no discernable "plot" except to follow the lives of some of the most interesting and quirky people you are liable to meet. You follow one person, you get a snapshot of their life and the movie then takes off on the life of a person that may just be walking by on the street. You get just enough to encapsulate where they are at in life right now. Most are going no where and this is the reason for the movies title. Great dialogue here and great stuff to get you thinking about the strangest things (Smurfs as Hindu propaganda???). Great movie if you will just give yourself over to it and release all expectations as far as what a movie is supposed to be.

The most interesting thing about Slacker is the way it was filmed. There is no real ONE storyline, until later in the film when viewers realize that one of the main premises is that everything that happens to someone in their day can have a effect on people they might not even know.

The film is split into 5-10 minute bits and pieces, as the camera moves from person to person. The first character we meet sees someone on the street and has a conversation with then, then the camera follows them for a while. Great stuff for those who suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, which I think represents most of us age 30 and under.

It's a very original and thoughtful idea. Rather than develop one storyline, we get to see part of many peoples lives and how they all affect each other. There are some great moments of comedy, and tongue in cheek humor, as well as sadness.

Perhaps moreso than any other film, Slacker embodies what Generation X is/was all about. It is one of the great defining films of Generation-X, along with Trainspotting, Clerks, True Romance, and Reality Bites.

I walked into Richard Linklater's SLACKER not knowing for sure what to expect. I think that is the best way to experience this film. I wouldn't exactly put this film under 'Comedy', if I ran my own video store. I would invent the category 'Post-Film School Experimental Piece' and place it under that. Because that is just what it is, but don't let that repulse you. It is very interesting and has the power to warp you in what seems like one shot throughout a day and night in a college town of Austin, Texas.

The true life preserver of this film is the sure directorial hand and witty script of Linklater. I enjoy the matter-of-fact philosophy within the dialogue of Linklater movies, (DAZED & CONFUSED, BEFORE SUNRISE)it is especially heavy here. It's fun watching the weirdos in this movie, like the video-obsessed droid who prefers taped sequences over reality or the chick with Madonna's pap smear (eewww!!) But it's almost frightening when you come upon a character very much like yourself.

But the movie most successfully gives us a town populated by characters we actually believe are living their aimless life in front of us. Minute-by-minute plays that intricately connect into a long string of slacker beads. These characters belong to the counter-culture where neurosis comes naturally and there are hardly skeptics anywhere. Where conversations find the metaphysical levels of funny postcards.

Later in the future, we will trip upon this movie again and find it more as being a time capsule of the early 90s than a semi-experimental comedy by a director most known for his insights of the sub-culture living inside their own heads.

Richard Linklater creates an indie of a day in Austin, Texas. The camera follows one character leading to another in a series of portrait of misfits and disenfranchised. Linklater uses long uncut takes of these people talking usually in a monologue. The series of eccentric discussions and weird characters are a mesmerizing tapestry. Individually interesting, they are string together until it creates a picture of a subculture and a neighborhood. It's not a narrative and it's very random. I do have some problems especially with the lady getting run over and nobody seeming to care. It makes the people look heartless which I hope isn't Linklater's intent. Otherwise it's an interesting unique indie.

Even though I've immensely enjoyed many of Richard Linklater's films (especially "Waking Life" and "Dazed and Confused"), I never had much desire to sit through Slacker. The title and the era made me anticipate this would be a lazily-crafted, self-indulgent, aimless exploration of the oh-so-forgettable ennui of 20-somethings.

Boy, was I wrong.

"Slacker" is actually a true "art film", a highly conceptualized storytelling experiment in the manner of mid-60's Godard. In fact, in many ways it seems patterned after Godard's "Weekend" -- a bold ambition for a young low-budget filmmaker if ever there was one -- with its long, fluid takes that seamlessly drift from one story to another with chance passings on Austin's sidewalks.

In many ways I found Slacker more interesting and more enjoyable than Godard's movie, though. Weekend ultimately boils down to Godard satirizing his society, while maintaining a dry, utterly unsentimental and unemotional attitude towards his characters. When you watch Weekend, there is always the sense that Godard is looking down his nose at his characters (however justifiably). Slacker has a more complicated relationship between Linklater and his subject. While there is undoubtedly a strongly satirical feel to many of the scenes (for example, the two apparently stoned guys debating the meaning of Saturday morning cartoons while they chain smoke in a bar), at the same time, the movie feels made from the inside. It's, maybe, a satirical self-portrait. In fact, since Linklater plays the first of the Slacker characters that we meet -- the cab fare spinning yarns about parallel universes -- it is in some manner quite literally a self-portrait.

All of that is a very academic way of saying what's viscerally obvious when watching Slacker - - it's funny and real and naturalistic at the same time that it is abstract, constructed and very obviously written.

I'm not sure what it all adds up to or if it's supposed to add up to anything. After all, this is the story of people who, with a couple of notable exceptions, can't seem to put their plans into action ("You're not on the list"), so it makes perfect sense that the movie in the end feels like it just wanders off a cliff instead of coming to an end. It would be a mistake to say that the movie captures a generation -- these are caricatures, without doubt -- but it does capture the flavor of the times as they rolled by on some particularly lazy afternoons.

Richard Linklater is a director well known for making films revolving around personal relationships, philosophy, and how people are affected by the passage of time. For this, he has made some of very memorable movies in the past including the coming-of-age comedy 'Dazed and Confused', the romantic trilogy starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and the critically acclaimed masterpiece 'Boyhood'. Rewinding back to the early 90s, Richard Linklater directed his first film centering on the social politics of citizens in Austin, Texas during the the Post-Baby boom period. This movie follows various unnamed characters and scenes dealing with seemingly random events around the city of Austin, including a young passenger (played by Richard Linklater) in a taxi car yattering about philosophy of dreams and reality, a young woman wandering around town trying to sell Madonna's Pap lipstick, a man lecturing on the existence of UFOs, a group of friends chatting about the conspiracy of John F. Kennedy's assassination, an elderly man who bonds with a criminal after thwarting him from robbing his house, and many other social misfits. The film focuses on each of these characters for a few minutes and their actions, and then cuts away to a new cast of characters, never showing them again.

This film is a highly unique movie with an interest that is incredibly difficult to describe, even for fans of Richard Linklater's other works. The concept of this film is that it doesn't necessarily have a plot of any sort, but basically explores different aspects of a society and creates interest through the intriguing and thought-producing topics of their conversations. Topics such as philosophy, terrorism, conspiracy theories, and politics are placed in the institutions of the conversations. As we listen to their thoughts on the topics, the character development comes how the conversations flow and how the characters interact with each other, to make viewers engage with the characters. Some of the conversations warrant some laughter, while other tackles on more subtle material such as in one scene with the man chatting on the existence of extra terrestrial life, or the scene with the teenagers talking about their beliefs dealing with JFK's assassination. The acting works quite well and the cinematography stays solid. The whole movie plays like a mockumentary about society functions. The movie is an interesting work of art, but can only interest those who understand the direction Linklater is taking this film. The only major flaw with the film is definitely the abandoned possibilities that Linklater could have done with the concept to make the film capture better interest.

Slacker is very unique and inspiring piece of work, but one that will definitely not appeal to everyone. Those who go into this expecting a plot will be significantly disappointed. But those who are able to understand the direction of this movie may enjoy this movie. This is a movie that doesn't tell a story, but rather explores aspects of societal and social satire.

The idea is interesting. Follow a group of slackers interacting with each other and then cut away to new group when new passerbys come on-screen. The problems are in execution.

The point is well-taken after only a few of these interactions and new digressions. But the exercise goes on far too long. This would have worked much better as a movie short. There is nothing new to gain from seeing 40 interactions as opposed to just the first few.

The second problem is that the characters are not interesting. They are all, every single one, simply annoying. They go on at long length about conspiracies, and make many idiotic statements throughout (both young and old), but never offer any new insights. Since all the characters (and there are many) are slackers of one variety or another, it makes it appear that the entire town of full of nothing but weirdos. As a former resident (and student) of Austin in the mid-to-late 80s, I can attest that there are *some* individuals like this, but they are certainly in the minority and not at all representative of the city. The only interesting thing for me was seeing the various Austin locales.

Director Richard Linklater follows one slacker after another in this absolutely fascinating film. Linklater throws out the rules of traditional movie-making with this low-budget film shot in Austin, Texas. There is no star, in fact, there is no central character. The camera simply follows one person, who meets and relates to a second person, then follows the second person to a third person and so on. Although the structure appears aimless, it remains thematically in focus throughout, and the film introduces enough interesting characters to fill five movies. The only problem is the length. By the end, the novelty starts to wear off a little bit.

If you liked 'Waking Life' you'll find 'Slacker' at least interesting for its similarities. There's many of the same characters, same style, even some of the same scenes. There's also a few differences. 'Slacker' is only partially philosophically related, whereas 'Waking Life' is completely based on philosophy. The non-philosophical portion of S consists of politics, conspiracy theory, general slacker lifestyle, aesthetic screen shots, and unique characters similar to those of Kevin Smith. Another thing is that there is no discernible plot in S while there is in WL. Really, if you like dialogue movies, you'll like this one. If you liked 'Tape' you'll like S. The big question is, Can you relate to a bunch of quasi-intellectual college graduates stuck somewhere between the world of professional scholarship and mainstream mundane-ness?

People share their random thoughts as they walk through their lives, chat at coffee shops, and preach on street corners. Everybody's got a theory and they seem to have a suspiciously nihilistic throughline: it's the 90's and all the good reasons for getting out of the house have been used up by the anarchists, the radicals, and the rooftop snipers. As we meet dozens of characters in thinly connected vignettes, we get a vivid picture of a time, a place, and a group of people. As Richard Linklater himself says in the opening monologue, all the choices that we make in our lives create alternate realities spinning off into space, formed by the possibility that we could have made a different choice, thereby creating a different future. Deep? Oh yes. Is life really like this? Definitely. We meet someone in a convenience store for two minutes, get a picture of their life, formulate some questions about them, and then, poof, they're gone, and you never know what happened, just as we never know what happened to the boy who runs down his mother, the couple who weren't on the guest list, the roommate who disappears, or any of the other characters in "Slacker."

But is it worth a movie? Open question, as far as I'm concerned. With such a string of unanswered questions, the audience eventually tires and refuses to invest emotionally in anything, knowing that they will be, once again, left hanging. Sure, life is just like that, but, like Andy Warhol's day-long film of the Empire State Building, the experiment might be better in theory (and in one of the coffee table conversations so prevalent in "Slacker") than in practice.

it's not often that a movie can keep you guessing from beginning to end. slacker is the movie that will stretch your mind past the boundaries of traditional thought. if you are able to fully immerse yourself into the story, you will begin to think like the characters. You will start questioning governmental activity, development conspiracy theories of your own, and possibly give up all hope in the realm of collective action. The director uses spontaneous, free-flowing dialogues to convey a realistic approach to what its like to be a drifting, free-thinking individual in Austin. The movie never grows tiresome because of the fact that the moment you start to figure out a character, you are left hanging to make your own conclusions of what happened to them. Without a second thought, the film immediately pursues the life of a new "slacker". Look for the creepy aspects in the film as well: subtle, missing children flyers are scattered throughout the backdrop of the scenes; and the schizophrenic cafe are a couple that stood out for me. this is a movie that you could watch a hundred times and still find a something new to walk away with. a modern classic.

Slacker is a film comprised of brief vignettes of characters living in Austin on one summer day. You will see a character and story for about 15 minutes, and then focus on another character that crosses their path. There is no overarching story, but what the characters do have in common is that they are "slackers", people who are removed from what is considered normal in one form or another. The characters can seem downright nihilistic at times, each often having very skewed perception of reality.

But it's by no means melodramatic either, it's more of an honest look at regular life for these people. It's like a collection of casual conversations you'd have with a friend over a beer; talking about philosophy, conspiracy theories or whatever. A lot of what is said isn't important, but the conversations can still manage to be engaging sometimes.

In this regard a lot of the characters stories are hit or miss. Some stories are goofy and good-hearted, while others just seem to drag on; especially when characters explain elaborate conspiracies. But what kept me going was seeing how one story would transition to another, and it's largely what keeps the movie from feeling disjointed. This all works well thanks to simple but clever camera movement and purposeful direction by Linklater.

Overall Slacker is a cool portrait of the 90's and its culture, especially alternative scenes like grunge and punk. This definitely isn't for everyone, but if you like the more honest and raw dialogue in films such as Clerks, then you definitely might get something out of Slacker. And if you live in Austin, Slacker is an interesting time capsule of the city before its rapid growth and gentrification.

I think this movie ranks among the 10 great films of all-time & I'm no slacker, either (well, maybe sort of...). Even though I own the laserdisc (& the guidebook), I love catching random parts of it on the indie channel at unplanned times. It's absolutely hypnotic. This movie breaks the tired & stale narrative form that film borrowed from (19th century) novels. See Phlicker's review below for a very insightful synopsis. If Richard Linklater never makes another film or never makes one nearly as good, it doesn't matter, he's broken the mold & created a new & unique model. Absolutely brilliant!!!

I almost let this one go after about fifteen minutes. The woman run over by a Slacker without remorse was cruel, heartless. I have a problem with Tarantino for the same reason. Violence may be beautiful if you're a pervert. For this episodic comedy, the underground world of college comic books comes alive. The nerd is glorified; the quirky chick is puffed up. These folks read a lot, talk a lot, but in truth, they're ignorant of Western Culture. Aristotle, George Washington, or Sigmund Freud, who are they? They know Marx, Charles Whitman (the nut case that shot a bunch of students from a campus tower) or conspiracies from space ship landings to Kennedy assassins. Then they go to a grunge-style rock club to end the evening, have sex for five minutes, and then start all over again. They're glib, pretty in a canvas sneaker way, but without a clue at twenty-five. Ah, American leisure! I liked the amateur actor, low-keyed approach by kids that have probably become suburban homemakers or your kid's English teacher by now. Linklater made a commercial film called Dazed and Confused after Slackers. It's more satisfying emotionally because there's an element of reality in his high school kids. They desperately know that youth is temporary. The slackers of Austin lack passion.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I rented this movie with very high hopes, being a huge fan of another Richard Linklater film called "Before Sunrise", and I don't remember ever being as disappointed with a movie as I was with this one. I knew before watching the movie that it would be heavy on dialog and have more conversations between people than action, but I didn't think that meant it would be so boring.

After all, "Before Sunrise" is just one conversation spanning from the start to finish of the movie, and yet it was enjoyable the whole way through. This movie, however, was excruciating to watch. The movie focuses on one character speaking to another (or several others) and then finds a new character and repeats the process. I wouldn't mind this pattern if the ideas of the characters interested me at all, but they did not. The people in this movie are the kinds of people I try to avoid being stuck in a conversation with. They are obsessed with their ideas, to the point where they're rude, inconsiderate, and oppressively force their thoughts on others, instead of engaging them in two-way conversation.

I thought it was irritatingly unrealistic how this film suggested that a person walking down the street would be willing to listen to a complete stranger rambling on and on about some subject he is fascinated with (i.e. conspiracy theories) without just cutting them off mid-sentence and telling them to go away. Some of the characters do eventually say, "I have to go" politely, but I always hoped it would have happened much sooner that it did.

Richard Linklater's appearance in this film was the most disappointing scene for me. After admiring "Before Sunrise" so much and knowing that he wrote much of it, I was interested in learning about what he might be like as a person. I figured he must be a very likable and eloquent man. Maybe he is, but he certainly didn't seem that way in this film. As he gave a cab driver a lecture on some very hackneyed philosophical ideas with the conviction of someone who believes he's really on to something, my heart sank a little.

He came across the same way many characters in this film did - like a pretentious student who thinks he's a genius with brilliant and intriguing thoughts when what he's saying really isn't very deep or meaningful at all. He is undoubtedly a talented and intelligent director, but as an on screen performer in this movie, he comes across as a tool. I don't know how close this "character" he played is to his real personality, but I don't really care. You don't have to like a director's personality to enjoy their work. If his screen presence has to be as annoying as it was here, he should stay behind the camera instead of getting in front of it. Fortunately, that's what he seems intent on doing, as he hasn't appeared in his other movies.

One of the only scenes I liked was one in which a girl bluntly and amusingly criticized one of the rambling characters by telling him that he's an idiot because all he does is regurgitate ideas he reads in books and other sources. She puts him down him for thinking that doing so makes him seem cultured and intelligent, when all it really does is make him look like a know-it-all who has no original ideas of his own. What was so funny and ironic about this exchange was that it perfectly conveyed my feelings about almost every character in the movie.

With its endless parade of shallow, deluded, and grating characters, this movie is a really torturous experience. The constant barrage of philosophy is exhausting and it doesn't pay off by providing viewers with any memorable or thought-provoking insights or information. It's a bit like "Waking Life", except without monologues that are actually interesting sometimes or remarkable animation to keep your eyes intrigued even when your ears are not.

There is a lot of indie charm involved in this movie, from the clothes to the scenery to the subject matter, it is a bit entrancing. I guess that's in right now, the whole indie charm, I feel this movie captured it well. I do feel, however, that some of the conversation seemed forced and empty, like they just threw in a lot of this to be pretentious, but you know, that's up to opinion. One thing that did really capture me about this movie in particular was the way they were able to capture intersecting lives and stories, I loved the way the camera followed the people, it didn't just cut to a new person. I feel this gives perspective on the life we live everyday and how so many people pass us by that also have individual stories, that the world is more terribly interconnected than we'd ever hoped to believe. Although I did say earlier that I thought some of the dialogue was pretentious, empty, and forced, I did like a lot of it. I liked how they were able to integrate serious, pressing topics with lighter more humorous ones. This juxtaposition makes the movie feel more real, it pulls the viewer in and out of trains of thought. I felt this gave it a more surreal feel, the feeling that this, a movie, is not so far off from the life we live everyday.

This film about Texas misfits gets off to a somewhat amusing start as Linklater, the writer-director himself, takes a cab ride and rambles off for several minutes about alternate universes and the roads not taken to the disinterested cab driver. When he reaches his destination, however, the focus shifts to another character that Linkletter passes on the street. Then it's on to another unrelated vignette and another and so on. It seems that each segment is less interesting than the one that preceded it. About half way through, the concept runs out of steam and film really begins to drag. It's an interesting concept that would have worked better if Linklater's script were actually funny. Alas, the laughs are few and far between.